Oscar Sunday with Questlove

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Higher Ground

Tv & Film, Film Interviews, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2022

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

To celebrate Oscar Sunday, we’re returning to our talk with legendary bandleader of The Roots and director of Summer of Soul, Questlove!

We discuss his winding road to making the documentary: from a trip to Japan (9:00) to a cold pitch backstage at The Tonight Show (10:30) to releasing the film last year (12:30). He also explains the cultural significance of the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 (15:39), the indescribable warmth of analogue sound (17:11), and why B.B. King's Why I Sing the Blues endures (18:03).

Then, in the spirit of Summer of Soul, we dive into the musical past of Questlove: listening to Sly & the Family Stone in the bathtub at age six (19:56), Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield at age 2, performing in a traveling band with his parents (23:35), before eventually creating The Roots (28:35).

With distance, Questlove reflects on the group's European excursion (34:34), the infamous Philadelphia jam sessions that placed The Roots in a larger, cultural context (39:30), how his definition of success has evolved with age (41:17), and the profound final words of his manager Richard Nichols (44:12). To close, we sit with the words of Nina Simone (48:43) and how they've inspired Questlove to preserve and restore the history of Black music for future generations (51:36).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin. The stalking This is talk easy. I'm San Frigo, so welcome to the show. Today I am joined by the one and only Questlove.
0:48.0	Questlove joined us on the podcast earlier this year around his directorial debut summer of soul. Part concert film
0:56.5	part historical record the documentary is set across six weeks in the summer of
1:01.5	1969 where just 100 miles south of Woodstock, the Harlem Cultural
1:07.6	Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park. The festival featured performances from Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, BB King, the Fifth
1:16.1	Dimension, Gladys Knight and the Pips.
1:19.2	But for decades, the footage
1:23.0	from this landmark event was buried,
1:24.0	destined to never see the light of day.
1:26.0	What the footage needed was not just a director,
1:29.0	but a student of music,
1:31.0	and that is where Questlove comes in. Here's a clip from his
1:35.3	directorial debut Summer of Soul. Nobody ever heard of the Harlem Culture
1:40.4	Festival. Nobody would believe that happened.
1:43.6	The one up down to the next.
1:50.6	Six weekends of major artists.
1:53.0	The Panthers were sitting up on the trees.
1:57.0	I was nervous.
1:59.0	I didn't expect a crowd like that.
2:02.0	Something very important was happening. I didn't expect a crowd like that.
2:02.7	Something very important was happening.
2:06.3	It wasn't just about the music.
	...

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